Something I can't help but notice is that the media tends to talk about protests with the same energy they talk about disasters. Earthquakes happen because a fault shifts, tornados happen when pressure differentials get too high, protests happen when people are angry at the government and want to vent their frustration. It's not treated like a power grab, not talked about as though it were a potential shift in the political landscape. It's just, "People are angry, therefore they must punch up."

     Let's not pretend the media believes in non-violent protest. If it did, every picture of a protest we saw would be one of people calmly talking to the media, not of random assholes punching police officers. If the media believed that non-violent protest was possible, they wouldn't just warn you about protest with all the energy of a news anchor reporting on the morning commute, they'd tell you where the nearest protest was happening, how you could join, and what you should do to be on your best behavior. They do none of that. All protests are violent and all violence is inexcusable. 

    When put like that, is it any wonder opposition movements resort to violence so often? They want (or often times need) things to change, the leaders aren't listening (since nine times out of ten injustice doesn't affect them personally) and every time they do anything to try and get people to listen to them, they're branded as scofflaws and disreputable ingrates. They're fighting a battle that they can't win and they're often trapped in a system very explicitly designed to kill them. Why should we expect anything other than violence? 

     This is the part where I'm supposed to say "I don't condone violence in the name of pursuing justice." Except that isn't true. At all. I think any action in the pursuit of justice is valid, especially when you're living under fascism. But right now I'm willing to listen to the center if they're willing to consider that maybe the descent into violent conflict is entirely their fault. Maybe the best way to stop violent protest is to encourage the explicitly non-violent kind and publicize it loudly when it happens. Or maybe, just maybe, you don't want that to happen because secretly you want a world where the national guard can kill innocent people in your cities without question just because the president decided that he didn't like you that day.